


In the Absence of Light We're the Same Thing

by malevolosidade



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 21:16:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2666618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malevolosidade/pseuds/malevolosidade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first manned mission to Neptune, and what is found along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Absence of Light We're the Same Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Maximum Balloon’s song “Absence of Light”. Many thanks to the lovely Zera Parker for beta-ing and making sure everything was OK. :)

They find themselves in a world of darkness, now. 

Far from the sort of darkness one is used to experiencing all life long, far from the darkness one finds when turning the lights off to sleep or the darkness one finds when camping out in the wilderness, there is nothing in the years spent training or the weeks of acclimation leading up to the launch that could have prepared them to this. No amount of lecturing from the captains of the previous missions, no amount of orientation films and full simulations: nothing compares to being completely engulfed by it.

Up here, where few have been and they are among the very first to go as far as the two of them are headed, darkness is, against all odds, translucent, almost liquid, seeping through the glossy windows as the ship cuts through its route. It reminds Nico of ink, plain and simple, of a sea of spilled ink over invisible canvases so stifling he often feels a pressing need to shift his gaze to any nearby source of light, be it the brisk halogen lights of the dining hall or the muted glow of the in-built touchscreen panels in the navigation room. 

Whatever is the source he eventually chooses, he gazes at it intently, until his eyes feel odd and he sees spots and blotches before his eyes in the most improbable places when he looks away. Then, he knows he is harnessed again. His focus is back where it should be, the long list of duties clear in his mind, his rationality tightly wound in place and there is the oddly soothing impression the endless abyss of the universe surrounding them will not lead the ship, the mission or themselves astray. 

It will not invade the ship further than it already has because there is light.

He doesn’t tell his shipmate he does so.

Nico peers ahead, scratching his stubble with an absent brush of the thumb.

They have a long way to go.

***

There is no real division between day and night in the void outside but there are shifts and procedures and experiments to be conducted, and if to Nico the existence of light is the basis and foundation for his reassurement, to Lewis it’s the certainty of routine that keeps his mind awake and alert. It’s easier for him, knowing there is one step, and then another, and so on, almost like an interlocked chain of reaction wrapped around his wrist he carries around.

“Systems?”

“All clear and running.” Nico pauses. “No major changes in speed or thrust.”

“As expected.” He nods at nothing in particular, his eyes mellow, just a shade away from actual tiredness. “I’ve got a couple of research reports to type up, do you mind if I bring in the workstation and hang around the navigation room?”

Nico is surprised but conceals it well enough that Lewis does not notice.

“By all means, Lewis.”

Lewis gives him a small smile and leaves, his shoes barely making a sound.

Early in acclimation, they had agreed that calling each other by their surnames or ranks would be too much, and there was no reason for exaggerated formalities given they were to spend the next three months side by side and then another three years in space with no other company. From the beginning, it was just Nico and Lewis, and while there were indeed no formalities, it never meant they immediately hit it off.

There was no clear mistrust, of course; it being a joint mission meant both space agencies were collaborating in every way possible, and thus no secrets were kept, nor was there any evident unease. It just felt as if both were so different that this was the actual reason they were paired for the mission, the old adage about opposites attracting being once again unconsciously put to test. They talked whenever necessary and bonded over a love of the space and science like they had rarely seen matched, but otherwise, the relationship was professional and nothing more.

Lewis kept to himself, absorbed in his reports and numbers, and Nico saw no choice but to hold his own side as well, manning the ship and doing his own share of work. Even eating was often done by themselves, between shifts, and whenever one of them was in the living quarters, cleaning up or sleeping, reading something out of the restricted selection of books and articles in their workstations or running the long corridors of the ship for exercise, the other was somewhere else, doing something else, thoughts scattered in clusters like the stars across the windows.

They lived together, and worked together, yes, but did not _spend time_ together.

As a matter of fact, since the solar sails had been opened a month earlier, it was the first time Lewis offered to do his work alongside Nico.

Lewis is present at the navigation room but still does not make conversation as he types, and in his state of mindful attention, he does not notice Nico stealing one or two glances over his shoulder from the pilot’s seat, his eyes trained on the fingers moving across the flat surface of the workstation in a well choreographed dance of their own.

***

The system keeps track of the intricate web of information for them: the number of days, the distance traveled, the speed, the levels of solar energy stored to power the ship, everything. Numbers and percentages is all they amount to, counting up and down, running simulations and working estimates in shades of acid orange and fluorescent teal, and still it is information that they cannot go on without, information that the mission depends on. Reports are received and sent back to Earth at least twice a week, and while they are allowed to speak to their superiors, there has been no need to do so thus far.

It’s just Nico and Lewis and the growing absence of light inside.

Nico can count on the fingers of his hands what he knows about Lewis: his full name, his younger brother, his age, his contributions to the space program and the Silver Arrow project, his knowledge of mathematics and aerodynamic, his unrelenting concentration and his steadfast commitment to the mission. It doesn’t quite go further than that, and then there are some bits and pieces here and there, some personal preferences, nothing that can be described as particularly earth-shattering or life-changing.

They’re not friends.

They’re not supposed to be friends.

All the silence, all the _reticence_ , however, gets to him in ways he wishes it didn’t.

He taps his fingers on the panels, programming another set of coordinates, reeling off commands to the machines that he can recite by heart if he wants to, but as the days advance and the second month dwindles behind the ship’s sails, each stroke of his, hour after hour, becomes tinged by a mix of exasperation and confusion.

***

If anything, the third month serves the purpose of approach, however small it is.

“What was it like for you?” Nico asks, getting an inquisitive glance from Lewis as he clarifies, “At your academy, I mean.”

“Plenty of studying and training. Nothing out of the ordinary, I guess.”

“What else?”

There is _always_ something else, Nico knows. Lewis is a person, not a robot that mindlessly does tasks or a ghost that has no other interests, and neither is he, for that matter; he himself had his music, and his love of the air and of the sky, and his family. He has no need to wonder further, but that’s not the point. The point is that now, heading towards the unknown, there is only work involving what they have studied for and trained for in the years at their respective academies; what defines them, at this moment, is the everything else, everything that remained, everything that was left behind on Earth.

Lewis detects something urgent in the rising tone of the second question, something almost unsettling but not prying or forceful, and obliges after a few moments.

It’s not because they’re not friends that they can’t talk at all, he decides.

“Sports, to keep fit. Basketball was my favorite, but I did running too, I never really stopped doing that. Watched old war films, went into commissioned Earth missions first as an assistant and then as a trainee. The academy I attended was geared towards scientific development and growth alongside military, so we were encouraged to aid in experiments. Work towards the common goal of enlightenment, they used to say.”

“Well, did you?”

He cannot tell whether Nico is genuinely interested in knowing or if it’s only a subterfuge to keep the conversation going; something in the way Nico’s eyes reflect the light of the room tells him the former is much closer to truth, however, and that is enough for him to keep talking.

“A couple of times. I was on Project Oniria before it folded.”

“Huh.” Nico seems surprised. “How’s that?”

“Oh, no,” Lewis is quick to add, realizing how out of place that might have seemed, “I was not part of the research team, of course. I was one of the volunteers.”

Nico has to admit Lewis did not strike him as the kind of person who would allow something so intimate as dreams to be studied and scrutinized, and admired him for it.

“How did that go?”

“It was alright, they would have needed a longer period to draw more consistent conclusions.” He continues, nonchalantly. “Apparently, most people’s dreams become repetitive after a period of time. For some it’s quicker, for others it takes far longer.”

“What ever did they see in yours?”

There’s a short stretch of silence as Lewis seems to consider something.

“I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell and I’ve never been good in remembering dreams.”

He does not mention his dreams were, and still are, always the darkest.

***

The next time, it’s Lewis that takes the first step in conversing.

“Was it easy for you,” he begins, one day, over what they agreed upon to call dinner, “to leave everything behind to come up here?”

There is a pause while Nico chews in silence, and he’s glad he has the time to gather his thoughts in the proper way before replying. His academy buddies that had gone on similar missions – Mars, Jupiter, the colonies smattered across the Saturnian rings – had always made a point of taking the month before acclimation to go out and experience everything they’d be privy to in the times to come. They made a point, and sometimes even a fuss, of eating every kind of food they knew they wouldn’t get on their ships, of visiting every place they loved the most, of playing the games and reading the books they wouldn’t be allowed to bring along for the journey.

That was all them, and it was a reflection, in a way, of their eagerness to go out and into the great black unknown, a particularity of their own he didn’t quite share; objectively, it made sense, especially for those heading on the longest missions, but he never felt the same desperate need of overloading his senses. It’d be so much it’d feel like nothing, he always figured, and never tried to replicate that; he spent time with his family, because he knew communication would be restricted, if not impossible, and that was it. Everything else would -- or at least _should_ \-- be where it was, _as_ it was, once he returned, and thus it did not concern him at all.

The meals, the drinks, the trees, the rivers and the sky.

He simply didn’t care.

He was equally sure of his return and of the perpetuity of life back on Earth.

“Yes,” he nods, digging for another portion of the ration with his fork, “it was.”

“Did it ever feel like a sacrifice?”

“No, not really.” Nico glances at him briefly, over the top of his glasses, but not out of disapproval or distaste. “That’s a very strong manner of describing it, Lewis.”

His answer is no lie, but Lewis seems incredulous at it.

“It’s been different for me,” he finally murmurs, without explaining.

Nico never had any second thoughts, never had the shadow of troubled doubt lurking in the corners of his mind. His father had been an astronaut before him, one of the first, part of the pioneering mission to Venus and the first and second missions to Mars, and there was no greater childhood memory of his than lying on the backyard of the cabin he grew up in, wide-eyed and lifting a hand to draw constellations as his father richly spoke of burning stars and solar winds, of neutron stars and a world beyond comprehension that had the vastest potential of exploration for centuries and generations to come. It was perhaps the sheer scope of the universe, or the emotional attachment derived from those evenings, but it did not take long until the desire to leave became ingrained in him, its roots sunk deep within. It became his ultimate goal in life and quite certainly his sincerest one: to help further the borders known to man, and to that end he did what he had to do.

It was easy to devote himself to something -- to _anything_ in life, indeed -- when you know it is your true calling, and Nico has no illusions about it, but also no regrets.

No second thoughts, no doubt.

Now he’s up in the stars, up in the void onwards to Neptune, a pioneer like his father.

Pioneers are bold, and so he feels he must ask.

“Why?”

It’s a simple question, incisive and sharp in its attempt to crack the bell jar Lewis seems to carry around himself at all times under the guise of armor, but it also comes out of concern, out of interest, and even, if he must be truthful to himself, a smidgen of curiosity. If it’s a barely discernible crack or one that runs like lightning from head to heel, only time will tell; for now, Lewis stills again and the remainder of the dinner is accompanied by silence on both sides.

***

Lewis runs a lot, day after day, week after week, up and down the corridors of the ship. It feels very important to him, in the beginning, that Nico must not be able to see him, or even to watch him while he does this. There is something uncomfortably revealing about him in this state of exertion, when he is sweating and unwinding and seething -- he is often angry when he runs, and so this is the time he chooses to keep to himself the most.

He’s not in the running just for the movement and the agitation.

He runs whenever the stillness is too much to bear.

He looks for a faceless distraction in each stride and each puff of breath that escapes his lips, he looks for a way to sweat out the guilt and the revulsion ramping through his guts and boiling inside his ribcage like melted iron. It’s not Nico’s fault, it’s nobody’s fault but his own that the dark tangle of feelings buried within gets the best of him time and again, and so there is no other choice but to run, and run, and run, and hope for it to eventually extinguish itself in a shockwave of heat and energy. 

He knows better than anyone, however, that such a collapse means that either the remnants are blown to pieces, to the very oblivion their ship is sailing on, or it becomes a black hole, and he knows it’s a fine line to tread.

He treads on nonetheless.

This is, for all intents and purposes, the moment he is most himself. He is at his most vulnerable, thoughts clawing out for air, scars exposed both in a literal and metaphorical sense, a strange kind of cruelty rising with the goosebumps that curl down his spine when he changes corridors, and because of this, he does not want to be seen.

This is also the moment he is the freest.

His body is his own. He sweats. He breathes. His feet pound on the floor. He can cry if he wants to, he can speak if he wishes so. His heart pumps his blood and it courses through his veins. His mind soars. His thoughts are clear and his brain is as sharp as ever, and it doesn’t matter that he is confined in space, it doesn’t matter that he has the scars to prove his past has turns he wishes it hadn’t. He can do this as much as he wants to.

It’s his life for the taking, it’s his catch for the chase, it’s his prize for the battle.

He comes into the navigation room sticky and smelling of the strenuous effort he has undertaken, where Nico is tapping at the screens, cycling through applications and inputing control data into their interfaces. He seems absorbed in his task, but Lewis can see the tensing of his neck, the subtle shifting and twitching of the muscles of his back underneath the collar of his drab grey jumpsuit when he hears the glass doors opening. 

Usually, he cleans up first before coming back.

Not today, not when he feels intangible strings have been severed, however briefly.

“Hey, Nico,” he says jovially but firmly, “do you need help?”

Lewis approaches him from behind, leaning forward as he speaks, arms stretched and hands propped on the edges of the control panel for balance and it only takes a fraction of a second for him to realize this has brought him close, _awfully_ close to Nico, close enough that with the smallest motion of the head, he sees the arch of Nico’s neck, milky and smooth, awash in the luminescent glow of the screens, and suddenly it’s like wildfire spreading inside.

“You needn’t worry,” Nico manages out after what feels like an eternity for both of them, unusually stiff, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he speaks.

Lewis doesn’t need to know, _shouldn’t_ know, perhaps shouldn’t _ever_ know, but Nico’s swallowing dry at this forced proximity, at the heat emanating from his body, at finding himself locked inside the constraint of the other man’s tattooed arms; in that position, in the manner he’s poised, they remind him of wings, a wingspan unbelievable of a bird ready to sweep down on him if he’s not careful enough.

“I’m sorry,” Lewis says, apologetically, as if he had just realized. “Did I disturb you?”

Nico swallows again.

“Not at all.”

In his head, however, the answer is the exact opposite.

Lewis smiles at him slightly, an odd little sliver of a smile that has several layers of meaning ready to be picked apart in the black hours to come behind the helm, and pulls away, excusing himself to the living quarters shortly after.

It’s only after the doors have shut themselves that Nico breathes again.

***

Nico has experiments of his own he’s meant to conduct, but they are not as intricate as Lewis’, who tends to disappear into other rooms for long periods of time. His attention, thus, is more often geared at making sure the ship is running like it should, and his habitat is the navigation room, staring out at the vast reaches of space that slide by them. Every once in a while, as he stares out, he realizes he is seeing things only a handful of humans have seen, that each star has a history of their own that he will never know, that there may be actual planets orbiting any of those far points they pass by so swiftly, and it feels just like being told of a secret for the first time, of finally being let in on something arcane and magnificent, or of witnessing something grand and untamed with the eyes of a child.

He cannot help but wonder at what is unknown, at what is to be discovered, and that there is so much yet to be found fills him with joy; paradoxically so, however, because their time and place for discovery still lies at the end of the current they’re sailing on, it turns out that the stars are quite similar to each other, after seeing droves of them go by for months.

He would never have thought he would ever get bored of this, of the universe, but there is now the smallest of niggles, almost like adhesive starting to dry and unpeel, almost like something he intends to avoid but is still drawn towards nonetheless.

Deep down in the blackest of the spaces, he feels lonely.

Unfortunately, the years spent at the academy do not prepare you for that.

Lewis is not a bad companion, by any means; he’s known worse. It was far tougher at the start, when they barely spoke to each other, but by now he seems to be easing off on their relationship. Nico understands, or at least he thinks he does; they have restraints that cannot be ignored or left behind and there’s only so much they have to do and only so much they have to see. It takes a toll on both of them, and every person deals with it in the manner they find most suitable.

It has happened before; it is happening now, and it will happen again.

Lewis is still intense, even mercurial at times, but now there’s something else in his being, in his eyes and his words, that sets him apart from the beginning. Nico never thought it was possible to have a calculated, _subdued_ sort of intensity, but Lewis has been its personification for some time now. There’s an element of tautness to his figure, of terseness and precision he can’t quite describe, can’t quite put his finger on its whys and hows; it’s simply there, evident enough it has surpassed the limits of skin and behavior.

There is also, Nico hates to admit, something magnetic about it.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep his eyes off Lewis.

He sometimes sits close to Nico in the navigation room; the distance has diminished in the passing months enough that now they already are side by side, and it has become recurring enough that it has become the rule instead of the exception. His excuse is that he wants to learn more about the operating systems, about the fine points of flying and the such, and Nico does not doubt the root of his interest is indeed the search for further knowledge; he’s a scientist, after all, and it’s no surprise he wants to learn, but that’s the catch: if it were any other occasion, any other moment in life or any other situation they found themselves in, he would swear that in addition to the pursuit of erudition, he was also being flirted to.

The academy never prepares you for that, either.

***

Their bunks are at the opposite ends of the living quarters, which they happen to share; there is no waste of space in the ship. Nico usually falls asleep quickly, and his sleep is vastly unremarkable in that it’s undisturbed; he doesn’t snore, he doesn’t stutter or stammer, he barely even shifts around. Lewis takes longer, and his sleep is more troubled and stilted, and it doesn’t occur to him that, even if their sleeping schedules don’t _always_ match, every once in a while they do, and Nico might wake him up for whatever reason.

Thus, he is not expecting his voice in his ear, or his hand on his shoulder.

Lewis is startled out of sleep, gasping something unintelligible, and Nico immediately removes his hand. His eyes open wide and he can’t remember what Nico just said, only that he _did_ say something. He’s shivering -- how can he be shivering, if the temperatures in the ship are kept controlled at all times? It comes to him, then, that he was dreaming and Nico said his name, he realizes in this fogged state of mind. He touches his brow with the back of his hand, finding it damp and cold; his fingers are shaking, almost too uncontrolled for him to manage it. This is not the good kind of sweating he is used to, the sweating from running, the sweating that makes away with his troubles. Nico says his name once more. Is he worried? He can’t tell, it feels like his mind is trying to desert him, in the middle of the universe, and he is so overwhelmed that the ridiculousness of the notion fails to register. His chest feels constricted, his agape mouth seeking air to ventilate his thoughts. _What_ was he dreaming about? It was crucial -- he needed to remember --

“Lewis,” Nico repeats, reaching out to hold his shoulders again. “Calm down. You were having a nightmare.”

Everything comes crashing down in a wave of anxiety once the words sink in because he is right, it _was_ a nightmare he was tangled into, its dark strings wrapping around his arms and legs to hold him in place. He can almost feel them still, now dead and limp, hanging from his wrists and ankles, but no, he’s going mad, his eyes flicker down and there’s nothing there.

“What was it about?” Lewis asks, his voice lilting up in urgency. Maybe he spoke. Maybe he said something. Maybe Nico knows better than he does. “What was it?”

“I don’t know-”

“Did I speak? Did I say _anything_?” Lewis interrupts. He’s suddenly so afraid, so panicked, and it’s sickening that he doesn’t even know what is causing him so much grief. What was the nightmare this time? Was he running? Was he running away from something? He can’t remember. He can never remember, not even when he needs to remember, when it turns out his subconscious hasn’t let go.

“No, Lewis,” he replies, his voice tethering between concern and mild exasperation. He’s sitting on the edge of his bunk, Lewis notices. His hands are warm on his shoulders, he notices. Those are small things, small details that should have him hooked and reeling back to reality, but to no avail; he wishes he could ease his breathing but he can’t, he can’t calm down, his mind’s not yet right.

“Please,” Lewis begs, and he is none too proud to realize he knows exactly what he is begging for. He’s begging for it to go away, to leave him alone. He must make it stop and the rational part of his mind is screaming at him to stop acting like this, that it was nothing but a nightmare, nothing but the void of blackness he drowns every other night, nothing but the abyss at the depths of his heart and his mind.

Still, he can’t shake off the pitiful dread that has gotten him trembling.

“Can’t you remember anything?”

Lewis shakes his head and covers his face with his hands. They’re not shaking anymore, but that doesn’t mean he is already devoid of fear.

“I woke up with your crying,” Nico continues, his eyes lowered, “and when I got to your bunk, you were digging your nails in the palms of your hands. Must have been one fucked up nightmare you had there.”

“I don’t know what it was,” Lewis manages out. He _does_ know, even if he doesn’t remember the specific details, even if all he sees is darkness, but it’s been buried under so much that every time it rises again, it’s like that, an exhausting ordeal that is hard to come out unscathed of. “I can’t remember.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it doesn’t matter now,” He sounds reassuring in the face of crisis, the vague shadow of a smile playing across his lips, his voice reminding Lewis of autumn sunlight for some reason. “I’m here. Sit up, come on.”  
Nico presses a hand against the space between his shoulder blades once he does so and pushes his torso down, gently but firmly. Lewis’ head rests between his knees, his arms dangling down by his legs. It feels like ages have passed, that suns have risen and died down and moons have spun around and around in their dizzying dance, but sure enough, his breathing is slowly easing off at last.

Nico’s still crouched in front of him when he comes back to himself.

Lewis looks at his face under the dimmed lights of the quarters and he can’t really tell whether it’s the blood rushing as he lifts his head or something else entirely, but it’s like energy spiking through his body, a shot of adrenaline surging through his veins when he does so. His eyes are wide looking at Nico, carefully perceiving the delicate shift in balance that has just occurred; across the threshold, across the other side, Nico’s face is a mirror of his in respect to realizations that have just occurred.

Nico doesn’t say anything else; Nico doesn’t move the hand from his back. Nico always knows what to do; Nico is the calm after the storm, a flare going up somewhere amidst the dark night.

He’s moving forward again before he notices it; maybe it’s because of the heat on his back, or because of the rush, or maybe it’s because he wants to, but he dives into the unknown with the very same unnerving conviction that has gotten him so much before, both good and bad, both positive and negative. It has gotten him where he is now, halfway through the journey to Neptune, it has gotten him the nightmares he has to this day.

Now, it lands his hands on Nico’s hair, and he thinks he hears the soft thunk of Nico’s knees on the floor as the other man raises his torso and leans forward, slowly, deliberately, until they’re grasping at each other’s arms, at the sides of their faces and their necks, curtailing all the undisclosed territory between themselves, and they’re kissing.

It’s nothing like he imagined it would be.

It’s positively enticing, like warmth in the midst of winter.

It’s Nico who deepens the kiss and Lewis does not fight at all. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s felt anything of the sort, or that he’s had this sort of contact, but it doesn’t matter, maybe it never truly mattered; he hasn’t forgotten how it goes. His hand has found the dipping curve of the small of Nico's back and with a flourish of caressing from his raked fingers, Nico moans softly into the kiss, a small implosion of desire that sends a shiver running down his own spine. He does it again and the reaction is the same, restrained but unexpectedly unravelled at the same time, and absolutely arousing nevertheless.

_Fuck._

_This can’t be._

He pulls away, seeking air and reason.

“I’m- I don’t think we should,” he stammers out, and Nico flicks him a wounded look.

“I don’t think so,” Nico speaks up, his voice firm, and even he himself is surprised at how he seems to be taking it all in stride. “There is something here, don’t deny it.”

The flush in his cheeks betray his confidence, however.

“That’s not the point, Nico. I’m not condoning it. I’m not saying it’s wrong or right, but we’re in the middle of a mission. This is not the place, nor is it the time.”

Lewis wishes it didn’t come out as scolding as it did.   
“Fine.” There’s a hint of hurt in Nico’s voice, of silent disagreement and inward constraint, elements that had never been there before. He wanted it too; this was clear to Lewis now, but his mind is still unchanged as to continuing from where it had stopped. “Fine. You’re right. Neptune is more important.”

The room is drawn into silence after this, the low hum of the ship in flight pulsing through their ears, their flesh, their heartbeats. Nico is still kneeling for a moment, any semblance of sleep or tiredness dead and gone, especially after the rupture has happened, and then he gets up, groaning when his legs creak, sounding obtusely loud to his ears.

“You should get some rest, Lewis.”

Lewis absently nods, his mind still a knotted daze for the most diverse reasons, and then he panics, equating falling asleep with falling into the darkness.

“That’s- I don’t think I can.”

Nico raises an eyebrow. Lewis studies him, his features, his demeanor; he seems suspended between leaving the quarters and staying behind, and he can almost imagine cogs and gears whirring in perpetual motion, weighing the possibilities, calculating the outcomes, deciding what should be his next step.

His mouth suddenly feels dry.

“You should try, it’ll be best for you. I’ll get you a glass of water, if you want to.”

“No, I can’t. Not now, at least. Don’t worry. I’ll be able to as soon as it tapers off.” Lewis croaks, and decides to be preemptive about it. “Don’t go.”

Nico gazes at him, just like that, just a long wordless stare, just the sort of searching stare that makes Lewis shift uncomfortably in his seat whenever it’s cast towards him, and there’s a burning that for now rests low in his eyes.

“I won’t,” Nico says, his voice the quietest of sighs, sitting down on his bunk, “and I promise to listen, if you want to talk. I won’t throw you out of the airlock, I swear.”

“Alright,” he mumbles, furrowing his brow at the unexpected joke. “Okay.”

He lets his silence speak for himself, and somehow, Nico doesn’t mind.

***

It’s a bit like living in a cage, Nico thinks after one particularly tiresome day, an odd sort of cage in that it’s not stationary; it’s not tethered to anything, it’s not hung up or held back, but instead it moves and moves as it plunges further into the darkness.

 _A cage with sails_ , he muses, a faint smile creeping on his lips, _that’s it, that’s exactly it_.

He wonders what his father would think of this novel notion of his.

It might be a cage, indeed, but it’s also home, at least for now.

The living quarters and other rooms are largely impersonal as they are, all smooth surfaces in tones pleasing to the eye and subtle lighting overhead. This was how the ship was given to them, but unconsciously or not, they have found their own ways to reclaim the ship and make it their own, from the pictures of the lakes that surrounded Nico’s home taped to the wall by his bunk to the collection of small stone figureheads scowling across the top of Lewis’ bunkside board. Ordinary details as they might be, as they would be to anyone else; for someone who has been completely detached from common life, they’re sobering tokens of what was left behind for the mission.

They help in making the ship more of a home and less of a sailing cage.

There are other things that trouble him as well, an oppressiveness that chokes him down, the odd, unsettling, _irrational_ impression the darkness has done its deed and is starting to leak in through its joints and ends, an overwhelming emptiness that wasn’t there when they had set off.

There is also how he can’t seem to reach out to Lewis.

His fingers trail the pine tops, up and down, like joining dots in an attempt to find a bigger picture, but it’s to no avail, it’s of no use when there’s no bigger picture to be drawn.

“Missing home?”

Nico is startled out of his meandering thoughts to find Lewis standing there.

“Not really, I guess. I like to come see them when I want to think.”

His voice is more of a threadbare sigh than anything else. 

The truth is that every once in a while, when he’s beginning to taste the sorrow in the water he drinks compulsively, he pretends that the pictures are windows. If he shuts his eyes for a second and opens them again, he tells himself it’ll be just like staring out at the windows of the cabin, it’ll be just like being back home but it never really works: he’s not a fool and the illusion’s easily broken.

“It sure doesn’t look like it, Nico.”

Nico isn’t particularly anxious or nervous, at least not noticeably so, but there’s tension to his features, a mixture of worry and grieving Lewis doesn’t remember ever seeing in any moment during the previous eleven months of traveling. Nico tends to be subtle about, for lack of a better word to describe it, _everything_ , and for it to be so transparent now means sublimating it is no longer working.

“What are you afraid of?”

It goes just like that, point blank through his chest, and he stares at Nico, inscrutably so, an odd taste of iron rising to his mouth. He turns to the rectangular view of the stars ahead before replying, a decision made up in his mind.

“I try to not be scared of anything-”

“I can’t believe it! You’re weaseling out again!”

Lewis is taken aback, but never daunted.

“I am not! I’ve no intention of weaseling out of anything!”

“Forgive me for my _hastiness_ , Lewis,” Nico continues, his voice now incisive, “but I never know when I’m going to get something out of you-”

“What is _wrong_ with you?” It’s Lewis’ turn to interrupt, ready to pick a fight, but just as the spark of anger sets something off inside him, it soon shrinks dead. He is not going to fight. He does not think it’s advisable to have this conversation -- _any_ conversation, for that matter -- devolve into a shouting match, and, most importantly, he _doesn’t_ want to fight Nico. “Look. You asked me something. Let me answer it to the best of my abilities.”

Nico’s eyes are dark as he sits up.

“Fine.”

“What I meant to say is,” Lewis begins again, picking his train of thought back up, “I try to not be scared of anything, but there are many things that can go wrong in a mission like this. We have been chosen for a reason, but there are things beyond us, things we cannot control. This is something that scares me, the unpredictability of space travel. We have projections, we have forecasts, but out here, out in space, it’s not as simple. You just have to live in the hope that nothing will go wrong.”

“I’m sorry for the outburst.” Nico apologizes, his voice sincere. “I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, the things that trouble me are my own. I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay.” Lewis shakes his head, sitting down by his side. “It’s tough up here.”

“I didn’t expect it to be like this.” Lewis raises a surprised eyebrow, but Nico continues before he can ask further. “No, I mean. I did expect it would be tough. I expected the isolation, I expected the loneliness, but I never expected the conditions would affect me that much. You come up here prepared to an extent, but it’s not enough. I just keep looking at these pictures,” he lifts his eyes slightly, as if gesturing to the pictures behind them, “and I find myself wanting to be back home.”

“So you _do_ miss home, in a nutshell.”

“I _do_ , but that’s not the end of it. I think that more than missing home, I miss having the freedom to come and go whenever I wished, wherever I wished to. Don’t get me wrong, this is a dream coming true. All of my life, I’ve waited for this opportunity and it’s in my hands now, I’m making the best of it. I’m not ungrateful. We’re still in constant movement, but… it’s not the same kind of movement as if we were back home. It’s not like driving down somewhere, it’s not like meeting up with friends for dinner and a drink, you know? You only have a limited set of options to act out up here. It’s to be expected, but you don’t truly know how you will fare until you’re well immersed in it.” He pauses and sighs, rubbing at some imaginary stain at the edge of the bunk to avoid looking at Lewis. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

Lewis grimaces.

“I do understand, I think. I think it’s not that you miss freedom, it’s that routine can be a bitch sometimes and up here, it’s all that we can do. Routine is all we have. It gives us a sense of purpose, it keeps us going. I do miss home too, I don’t think anyone who has ever been in a mission has not missed home or whatever it is that they left behind. I find that illogical, impossible even. I do miss a lot of things back on Earth, I miss them more than you can imagine, and I used to be a lot angrier about it.”

“Aren’t you anymore?”

“I grew tired of it.” Lewis says simply. “Anger is tiring.”

“I don’t think I was ever angry about it. Or about anything. Never saw the need to.”

“You know, the way I see it, in some situations, anger can be a driving force, it can push you forward, it can incite you. But you can’t let it become what defines you. You can’t let it overgrow you. Too much anger turns into hatred. It’ll be hopeless if it gets that far.”

“Have you ever gotten that far?”

Lewis could lie, could make up a beautiful story, but chooses not to.

“I have. I speak from experience when I say it becomes hopeless, because when it does, you hit the bottom, and when you hit the bottom, it feels there’s no way out or up.”

“Yet here you are now, on your way to the great unknown.”

“There’s always a way. It takes a while for you to realize it, some take longer, others are faster, but the moment of realization always comes. You have to figure out what it is and once you do, you use that as incentive to push yourself out. It’s what I did.”

Nico’s features soften as he takes in not only Lewis’ words, but also their meaning and their implications; he thinks, oddly, of forked paths and mazes that hide a heart of peaceful darkness in their centers, of labyrinths and threads that lead out into the light, and while the sorrow he felt previously has diminished, there’s still place for one last regret.

“We shouldn’t have taken so long to do this.”

“Better late than never, I suppose.” Lewis shrugs, noting the hint of melancholy that has risen at the end of the sentence. It does not surprise him. “It comes with time.”

Nico casts him an inquisitive look, searching his features for something else.

“Only time?”

“No,” Lewis turns to face him. “Trust, too.”

***

The breaching of frontiers is not limited to the deepening cosmos ahead or to the waning imaginary line drawn between Earth and Neptune the ship diligently follows; it applies to the two of them as well. They have plenty of time on their hands to learn all that there is to be learned about each other: the particularities, the histories from a time before the academy and before the mission itself, the subtle changes in behavior under duress, the details very few people would be keen to notice in any other moment.

This is learning done without maps or coordinates, without manuals or instructions, and it’s all the more difficult for it, a gamble in trial and error, even a delicate labor.

Yet it unfolds in such a way that it is also nothing short of a satisfying task.

“We’re almost there,” Nico chirps up one day, much to Lewis’ amusement.

“Oh, yes,” Lewis nods sagely, leaning his back on his seat in the navigation room. “Four more months and we’ll be there, but we’re still far from the end. You do forget about landing, and surveying the terrain, and the trip back.”

“Ah, no, I haven’t forgotten.” Nico points out, grinning slyly. “How could I possibly forget? It’s all part of the mission. But I will worry about the trip back when we’re done with reconnaissance, when we’ve secured the samples and we’re ready to take off. For now, it’s about getting to Neptune, and to that end, we’re almost there.”

Lewis can’t argue against that, but the thought doesn’t rid itself so easily.

“I wonder whether Earth will still be the same when we return.”

“Well, I’d say that yes, fundamentally speaking, it will,” Nico says, matter-of-factly, turning around to face Lewis, “but this is not what you’re getting at, is it?”

“No, it isn’t. I know the greater things will be unchanged. Unmoved, even. If they do undergo some sort of change, it’s too short of a time for relevant impact to happen. What gets me thinking is the smaller things. The daily things, the common things.”

“Such as?”

“The Chinese food joint around the corner of the academy.”

Nico laughs, but not out of scorn.

“I think that you’re not concerned about change, you’re actually tired of eating the same vitamin rations every single day, that’s what.”

Lewis cracks a smile.

“You’re not too far off there, I have to admit,” he concedes, before easing into seriousness again, “but that’s not all. I can make all the predictions I want about it, but that’s all they amount to, speculations. The elderly owner might have died and his son decided to close it down once and for all. It might have moved to another area. There might be a laundrette in its place now. Or it might even still be there, functioning as it always did, serving cheap, tasty food for the cadets. That’s the thing. I won’t be sure of its fate until I get back. A place that held meaning to me and to my mates, a place I have many memories of, and I might have missed the opportunity to go there one last time.”

Nico looks pensive, tapping the end of his digital pen on his pursed lips.

“You _don’t know_ if you missed the last shot in eating there.”

“What if I did?”

“You’d still have the memories. That surely has got to count for something.”

It’s Lewis’ turn to ponder.

“Sometimes I think I’m already forgetting the memories, all of them.”

There are not as many serpents slithering as there were before in his mind, the nightmares certainly no longer as crippling as the one he had months before -- it’s odd, he thinks, he could almost swear it was _years_ ago instead, so much having and having not happened in the time between then and now. In a strange manner, and out of what is known, out of what science has said and proved, the perception of time is changed in space; sometimes it seems stuck, other times it goes so fast it cannot be perceived. On the other hand, as much as it is a balm, it also is a curse; the things he seemed to remember about Earth are turning into faded hues and echoes, into pantomimes and broken shards of what once was true and certain. 

“You have to try to hold on to them, Lewis.”

“I try, and believe me, I didn’t think I’d forget them so easily. It’s… it’s a bit like there’s a tide of black and stardust washing over them, day after day. Like waves lapping endlessly on the shore, in a way. There’s no past anymore, there’s just the present, there’s just… all of this.” Lewis tries to describe to an attentive Nico, his hands waving around. “Don’t tell me there isn’t anything of the sort happening to you either.”

Lewis doesn’t it say aloud, but he fears it’s what erodes his mind to ruin the most.

Nico looks at him, his features owlish.

“I try to keep it a balance between the past and the present. I used to stare at the light sources, I know it sounds stupid but it used to help and don’t ask me why it did, but it did. Now I find there are other ways. Focusing. Remembering. Sharing. Everything helps.”

Lewis stares out at the patterns of the moving stars outside.

“You’re better at strengthening your mind than I could ever hope to be.”

“No, no.” Nico shakes his head, deeply disagreeing with the notion. “Your mind is as strong as mine, despite what you think. You wouldn’t have made it this far if it wasn’t.”

“I don’t think I would have made it this far without you, either,” he admits, and his chest feels less heavy after he does so.

Nico is busy at the controls, tapping and typing in equal measures, and doesn’t reciprocate the glance, but smiles nonetheless.

“You’re not too bad of a companion, either.”

“Nah, I could have been better. I could have been a lot better, in the long run.”

“You’re doing just fine. We’re both doing just fine. This is a good ship. We keep it running, the mission has not been delayed one day, the experiments have the lowest margins of error thus far.” He glances at Lewis, but holds on for longer now. “We make a good team, all things considered. We could be at each other’s throats by now.”

“Then the mission would have been a failure, plain and simple.”

“You make it sound like we only held it together for the mission.”

Lewis motions his head to the left and the look he gives Nico is searing.

“You know that isn’t the case.”

Nico knows it far too well.

***

As the ship lowers itself on the surface of Neptune, Lewis realizes darkness itself has undergone a transformation of its own; it seems strong as ever but pliable now, bendable to his will in ways it hadn’t before, or perhaps it is himself that has changed, more resilient to his surroundings, more used to the twists and turns of the path he’s treaded on and thus more prepared to tame the uncertain meanderings that still remain.

Strapped to the seat at his side, Nico can barely conceal his excitement in arriving.

“We made it,” he says, a mantra he’s been repeating to himself in varying degrees ever since the blue planet arose in all of its glory and splendor in front of them, and the weather patterns were magnificent enough that Lewis allowed himself to be as overwhelmed as he is. He grins in childlike, entirely sincere joy. “We made it!”

Lewis can only smile widely at that, in a way he hadn’t remembered doing for long.

_We did make it._

Leaning on each other for support, they made it.

Ultimately, more than making it, it is the first part that amazes him the most.

After a brief flyover to the exact spot, landing is smooth, nary a sound heard; ahead of them, the landscape is what was expected of it, a vastness of wind, rock and ice definitely unsuitable for habitation as of the present moment. Lewis feels a lump in his throat, for some odd reason, as he takes in the view, and he doesn’t need to face Nico to know he’s going through the same motion. Neither one moves for what feels like yet another eternity; he knows soon it’ll be time to start the proper mission itself, but there’s still time to feel nothing but the purest, most ecstatic form of awe.

This is for the two of them, and the two of them only.

Nobody else will ever know, will ever figure out, will ever so much as venture a guess as to what it is like, as to what it _feels_ like.

“It’s beautiful,” Nico starts, but doesn’t finish, it’s too much for him.

Lewis thinks it’s beautiful, yes, but there’s something terrible to it too, in the shadows ahead and what awaits them outside, the conditions and the uncertainty; yet, in face of all that they have gone through, he has complete trust in their equipment and, moreover, in themselves to complete what they’ve set out for. 

They will not have traveled so far for nothing.

“Are you ready?” he asks Nico, just as a means of taking the first step.

He can’t help but wonder, briefly, whether Nico is nervous, if the excitement is only a cover for something darker, but it doesn’t last; there might be some anxiety to the way Nico replies by unhooking his belts and nudging him to get up and get out of the navigation room, as if saying, _come on, let’s go the time has come_ , but that’s about it, that’s completely understandable and expected. They have the suits and the helmets and the decompression chambers to go through, they have to set the ship up for the periods they’ll spend on the planet, they have the few last procedures to make before walking out, before conquering the last ice giant in the system for Earth.

Time presses on, time weighs down, time leaves its mark.

Lewis takes one last look at the outside before letting himself out of the seat, and because Nico has already scurried out of the room, he is alone for a moment.

Alone, also, in a way he hadn’t remembered being for long.

He suddenly has a vision of a successful return to Earth, another year and a half ahead of them, but the catch is that in this vision, he’s back on Earth and Nico’s nowhere to be seen, still alive and well but somewhere that is not his side. It’s something that he had not given an ounce of consideration a moment ago; now, it won’t leave him alone, its inevitability starkly clear to him. It will come a time when the paths will have to part again, each to a side, each to a country, each to their own lives.

This is not something he is willing to give up so readily.

“Lewis, we have to get going!” Nico pokes his head around the door, frowning when he sees Lewis standing motionless. “Is there anything wrong?”

He cannot fathom the separation just yet.

“Nothing, I’m alright.” He assures Nico, placing a hand on his shoulder more for his own sake than anything else. “I promise. Give me a few minutes, I’ll be ready.”

“Take your time,” he says, picking up both helmets and thrusting one of them into Lewis’ free hand, “I’ll go check the rest of the equipment while you’re at it.”

It’s then, after he’s watched Nico has left his grasp and turned around, that Lewis realizes that if there is actually a separation to happen, this is not yet the time to be concerned about it; there is still plenty of time, there is still plenty of days ahead to work it out, there are still plenty of memories waiting to happen, memories that can be held on to even in the event of an end less than desirable. There is, still, a future for them in the way back, and a future for them once they are on Earth.

In the end, the future is like their journey: they are given the broad strokes in advance, and those provide the framework in which they dwell, but it’s what they add themselves that truly gives life to the final picture. In their humanity, in their moments of hardship and in their moments of resilience, they give color and nuance where there was none. It was, and still is, a collaborative effort; one could not have done such a work on his own. The notion of separation is disheartening precisely because the paths are already too entwined for them to be picked apart again, but no; no more of this, Lewis decides, zipping the front of his suit with purpose.

More than light or routine, they’ve kept each other in check, and this shall go on.

They are equal parts emotion and reason, built upon the same proportions of thought and desire, and their history does not end soon. It only ends when they will it to end, and its time has not come yet. There are still matters to be settled, there are still travels to be done, there are still days to be lived in company and nights to be spent together. There is darkness all around them, and darkness inside themselves, but it does not matter.

In the absence of light they’re the same thing, made of flesh and blood.

**\--the end--**


End file.
